God in the Dark

            My adult son and I just went to see a fairy-tale movie, but this was no movie for children. I have a network of people I listen to and magazines I watch for recommendations about movies that are worth my time. Pan’s Labyrinth (rated R for violence, cruelty and some gross images) is the latest in a string of movies in which I’ve noticed a pattern over the last six or seven years. Now I want you to be very careful about choosing to see the movies I’m going to mention here. Still, I want you to be aware of them because your friends may have seen them, your older children and/or their friends may have seen them, and because the pattern I’ve been seeing in them is a pattern of redemption, of salvation through darkest times in which even we can take heart.

            In high school or college, you may have read bits or all of Dante’s Inferno. Few people ever read from (or even know about) the rest of Dante’s great classic including descriptions of Eden and heaven—we seem to be much more interested in the vivid description of hell. Today there is a terrible return to the kinds of hellish horror films of the 70’s with their excessive gore, but there is a positive trend as well. So there certainly are movies worth avoiding at all costs (Hostel comes to mind among others). There are, however, other movies, very dark films, that show this trend I’m talking about. Over the last seven years movie makers have been looking for God in the darkness. I’m not talking about terrible movies that tag on a hopeful last moment at the end but movies in which a search for God or some Divine Good is central to the story.

            In The Matrix we see a kind of Christian parable about faith and fear. Donnie Darko is about an emotionally disturbed boy who vandalizes his high school but chooses to follow the will of God and die for the sake of his entire community, even those who hate him most. The Passion of the Christ and To End All Wars are explicitly Christian films filled with explicit scenes of violence. Hell Boy features a wise old Christian (though the theology in the film isn’t very biblical) who teaches his warriors for good that God has given us the choice of walking a path of either good or evil. Last year The Exorcism of Emily Rose frightened many into taking the existence of demons seriously, and Lady in the Water argued that a supernatural world exists, and we have a role to play in the battle against good and evil. Even very offensive films like American Beauty and Magnolia hinge on moments of redemption through Divine encounters. Pan’s Labyrinth, a foreign language film, opened in only a few theaters around the nation in December ’06 but then expanded its distribution when critics and movie goers created buzz about the movie’s story of self sacrifice and heavenly hope.

            Now let me emphasize again the extreme caution you want to take in choosing to see any of these movies. The difficult balance of being “in the world but not of it” that all Christians must manage means choosing what we can be a part of and what we must have nothing to do with. At the same time we should remember that Jesus hung around in the first century equivalent of bars (eating with sinners and tax collectors). Even though I constantly looks at movies and television both for fun and as resources for teaching and outreach, I still try to be choosy. Some movies I will not see. Some I will never see twice even if I find them valuable. So be proactive in deciding what movies you should and shouldn’t see by looking at reviews and asking friends and co-workers what they think.

            My point here has not been to recommend the movies I’ve listed. It’s been to explain a pattern to you that I think might give you insight into the way your non-believing friends and family think. I believe we live in a culture that has, itself, become very dark. It is a culture that has rejected traditional religion but is still spiritually hungry. That’s what I’m seeing in these movies! Too many people doubt the existence of heaven, but they still keep looking for God in the hellish world we’ve made here on Earth. It’s hard for them to believe in an all powerful, loving God when all they see is a world filled with evil. But when they look closely enough at that evil it occurs to them that the alienation they feel from it may point the way to true light. When they look closely enough at that evil it occurs to them, even doubting the existence of God, that there might be a devil, and if there’s a devil, then maybe, just maybe there is a God.

            Your friends, and your kids’ friends (and maybe your older kids) are watching movies that have no redeeming value. But some of the movies they’re watching, even dark and twisted, have redemption as their one and only value—knowing about those movies may open a door for us to get them talking about truth and how they can find God even in the darkness.